Rio Bravo Fine Art at SFCC

Eduardo Alicea was born in the Bronx, but he was raised in Puerto Rico beginning at age seven when his family moved there. He was formally trained as an artist and has a Bachelor’s Degree in Painting and Graphic Art from the Universidad Interamericana Recinto de San German, Puerto Rico. While living and working in Puerto Rico in 1999, he saw an on-line ad for a position as an assistant to H. Joe Waldrum, who was in the process of establishing his studio/gallery, RioBravoFineArt, in Truth or Consequences. Alicea took the position and was instrumental in Waldrum’s early efforts to establish the gallery. With Waldrum’s untimely death in 2003, Alicea took over the responsibility of running the gallery. The settlement of Waldrum’s estate in 2014 made Alicea the full owner and director of RioBravoFineArt Gallery. Under his leadership, RioBravoFineArt has grown to represent a group of talented artists with a wide range of artistic expression. The demands of operating the gallery limit Alicea’s time for artistic expression, but he does pursue artistic activities when time permits. He has recently been developing his fiber art skills, participating in a plein air group, and experimenting with acrylic pouring.

Roy van der Aa places his work in the realm of Non-Objective Geometric Abstraction that has evolved in recent years. Beginning 2009: “I have been working with contrasting geometric shapes on a grid with organic or other overpainting since late 2009.” Beginning January 2016: “… I began to experiment with a new way of working. The background is still pieced together on a grid but are overpainted in similar colors which are scrubbed to create a deep textured surface.” Beginning 2018: “… I began a series of painted collages, producing variations on each collage by painting over a giclee print of the collage image.” In addition to his prolific artistic output, van der Aa publishes the INK, an arts and events newspaper for southern New Mexico. He has exhibited internationally. In 2018 he exhibited new pochoir prints at Gallery Iris & Shriek in Amsterdam; In 2019 he participated in the inaugural exhibit of The Hiatus Collective in London.

Martye Allen – a quote from the artist: “Clay has been my passion since I first worked with it in college even though I was concentrating on drawing and painting. It came as a surprise to end up as a potter and not as a painter, but I have spent the last forty years working with great joy in clay … Some years ago, however, I began to feel a pull in a different but familiar direction. The desire to get back to my drawing and painting roots became impossible to ignore. So now my studio time is spent with many different media. Along with throwing a few pots and building sculptures, I am drawing with oil pastels, mono-printing with inks, and painting with water soluble oil paints. The only common element in all this potential chaos is the animal images that are part of all my work. Ancient rock art and Inuit art continue to be intensely inspiring. Motivation for all my work still begins with my desire to keep the pieces alive, fresh, and welcoming.”

Wiz Allred is a distinguished artist whose works are collected on every continent but Antarctica, including high-profile collections at the Marina City buildings in Chicago and the US Pentagon. Allred has worked in myriad aspects of the visual arts, including illustration, billboards, graphic design, watercolor, oils, acrylics, metals, and stone. Although he has worked in many genres, Allred primarily paints landscapes, seeking to capture the peculiar light of Northern New Mexico and all that it touches: mountains, forests, rivers, snow, and sky. True to his wide-ranging experience in the visual arts, Allred owns and operates a graphics business that designs award-winning books (specializing in art reference) as well as a stone business that specializes in the installation of water features comprised of monumental-sized boulders in areas where you cannot get forklifts or cranes.

Dave Barnett obtained an M. A. in Painting in the late sixties at New Mexico Highlands University, where he was taught by the well-known artist Elmer Schooley. Ten years after graduating, Barnett gave up painting completely and began to focus on pottery instead. Clay was his medium for the subsequent 16 years. In 1994, Schooley recommended that Barnett view a show of Impressionist paintings at the Kimball Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas. He has painted ever since. In describing his creative process, Barnett says that “I am a selfish painter, and must be very positive that what I am about to paint is a subject that has great appeal to me, or one with which I have actually had a visual encounter. It must also fit the style format to which I am accustomed.” For those people familiar with Barnett’s work, there is no limit on his style; his format is typically large fifty-inch by fifty-inch canvases. Barnett’s work is in the New Mexico State Capitol Building as part of the Capitol Art Collection.

Susan Christie has been involved in the art world for over 50 years. She is originally from Minneapolis. Following her BA degree from the University of Minneapolis in anthropology, she studied Asian Ink Painting with a Japanese Master Painter at Minnihon in Minneapolis for 10 years. She then studied in 1984 at a famous art academy in China. In Christie’s varied art career, she has originated two galleries in Minneapolis, conducted individual workshops, and written articles and exhibition text. Lately, her primary interest has been in the world of fiber art. In 2014, she was the lead curator for an exhibition of thirty-six fiber artists at RioBravoFineArt® Gallery. This was followed by the Las Cruces Museum of Art exhibition Transforming Space – Transforming Fiber in 2016 and 2017. Currently Christie is the Editor/Publisher of the New Mexico Fiber Arts Directory (NMFDAD) and the new Mountain West Fiber Arts Directory. She will be curating an exhibition in 2022 at the RioBravoFineArt® Gallery showcasing members of the NMFAD.

Gregory Grafwallner – statement of philosophy: “To promote the beautiful simplicity of form and motion. In this energetic fast paced world, my art is made to calm and center one’s mind.” Much of Grafwallner’s work is centered around kinetic sculptures. These sculptures are a cascade of carefully balanced components. Because of the delicate balancing, the sculptures can change configuration in mesmerizingly slow processes. There is no single representation of a sculpture, only ever-shifting patterns. In a recent show of Grafwallner’s work, his kinetic sculptures were paired with his geometrically inspired paintings. The pairing of the kinetic art with his geometry inspired paintings emphasized Grafwallner’s goal to create art that can produce contemplative and reflective experiences. Grafwallner has a degree in music performance and composition from the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee; he also has a degree from the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music.

Sandy Hopper has had, and very much still has, a rich, varied, and contemplative life in art. We would classify her as a fiber artist. Within that broad classification, Sandy has always experimented with and developed many techniques to create her art. She has worked in the realm of silk painting, Nuno, and modified Shibori. She has experimented with combining processes and adding embellishments to pieces in creative ways. Sandy has searched for unique ways to exhibit her finished art, and she aspires to give the viewer of her artwork an insight into the creative process. Sandy will have a one-person fiber-arts show at RioBravoFineArt Gallery in the fall of 2021.

Delmas Howe is a groundbreaking figure painter. Over a long span of years, Delmas has created major series of works that reflect on the American psyche using the concepts of great historical traditions in art and literature. His Rodeo Pantheon series presents the American West as the great myth machine for our nation in the context of the classical myth stories from Greek and Roman times while using aspects of style from the Beaux Arts School. His homoerotic Stations [of the Cross] is done in the style of great religious art in Europe. The Stations reflect the emotional impact of the Aids crisis with a backdrop (the New York docks) that shows changes brought on by globalization of the world economy.

Noël Hudson has had the good fortune to experience many cultures, and these many cultures have shaped her artistic career. In 1969, while pursuing a Master of Fine Art, she traveled Europe extensively to study European art and architecture. A year after obtaining her degree, she went to Japan for three years where she taught art and studied with a contemporary Japanese printmaker; during this stay in Japan, she explored numerous countries in Southeast Asia. In 1980 she moved from southern California to Taos. With this move to Taos, “I have maintained a home and studio along the Rio Grande corridor in Taos, Albuquerque, and, currently, Santa Fe with a creative focus on painting, print making, and collage. The rich history and culture, the vast open spaces and beauty of the land in its many forms here, as well as aspects of higher consciousness combined with my travel experiences in Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean Islands, have been powerful sources of inspiration for inner life and my art.” Hudson has work in the New Mexico State Capitol Building as part of the Capitol Art Collection.

Sissy Hide was born and raised in Nuremberg, Germany. When she moved to the United States, she became a Fine Arts Major at the University of Colorado, where amongst other disciplines, she studied four years of ceramics and two years of handmade paper. She is a painter, a sculptor, and a maker of custom jewelry. For her painting endeavors, her focus is on “gesture”. She prefers a fast medium and lacquers with metallic or refractive properties. She started splattering Pollock style in 1978 and upgraded to splattering car lacquer in 1982. She continues to explore her painting techniques using various media, including melted make-up and nail polish. Her paper making skills were first combined with her skills as sculptor to create a series of dresses (her Paper Dress Series) made from handmade paper and delicate tissue paper. Her “dressmaking” process evolved when she started using one main clay form rather various mannequins. The Schicksa Series was created with this technique. The Schicksa dresses share a humorously voluptuous, idealistic figure (a Barbie doll physique so to speak) made using the same clay mannequin for the form, but each dress retains a unique character.

Katharine Kreisher – Artist’s Statement: “For years all my images began with photography. Over several decades of artmaking, I have altered photographic images of myself and my personal environment by layering paint on the surface, by transforming them through traditional printmaking methods or collage, or by manipulating them digitally. Current work about one’s sense of self in the world is driven by archetypal images derived from dream analysis and supported by the reinterpretation of everyday experience through meditation and yoga practice. Images explore how we experience an on-going metamorphosis as our elusive, fragile constructed identities shift throughout life, and how the contemplation of images emerging from the unconscious becomes a search for peace, both an individual peace of mind and also a universal peace.” Kreisher currently teaches at Hartwick, College.

Julia Masaoka – Artist’s Statement: “… I have been doing art for over forty years. I originally worked as an abstract landscape painter before transitioning to creating mixed media shrines and assemblages.
I’m fortunate to have had residencies at the Vermont art Center and the Wurlitzer Foundation in Taos.
I primarily work with metal, hardware and iconic images, using objects from scrapyards, thrift stores, and the desert – “Trashformation”- beauty from trash! Themes range from the sacred to the humorous, often with a sense of mystery. I am especially inspired by the art of Mexico and Outsider artists. I work intuitively and learn by experimenting, informed by the process of creating each piece“. Masaoka has exhibited in Carmel, CA, Vermont, and Asheville, NC as well as Truth or Consequences, NM.

Darlene Olive McElroy – from her Artist Statement: “Contemporary narrative artist, Darlene Olivia McElroy is descended from an old New Mexico family of artists and storytellers. She is deeply influenced by summers spent on her family’s ranch in Santa Fe with a rich experience of Hispanic life and cultural tradition. McElroy comes from a multicultural background which is as diverse as that of Santa Fe: Hispanic, Anglo, and Native American and she embraces every aspect of her heritage with her art. Working in a mixed media, her work explores traditions, history, myths, symbols, shrines, aspirations, cultural beliefs, and the diverse personas that make up Santa Fe. Her art uses found objects, rich color, pattern, textural surfaces, and her own symbolic visual language to draw the viewer in. She is a storyteller at heart, and one cannot look at her art without wondering about the tales and meanings that lies within each piece. … She organized the 2019 multidisciplinary celebration of Dia de Los Muertos at El Museo Cultural de Santa Fe, the contemporary shrine exhibition/pilgrimage and has been a participant in Santa Fe’s Contemporary Hispanic Market for many years.”

Donna Monroe is part of the long history of textiles as they entered the realm of fine art in the early 1960’s. She began her art career working in the realms of photography and printmaking. She then transitioned to the world of fiber art and created a large body of sculpture, embellished textiles, totem figures, shrines, assemblages, altered books, and paper collage. In the fall of 2020, at the age of 82, she had her first full showing of a lifetime of work at RioBravoFineArt. Her work encompasses a passion for collecting found materials. As the artist states, “nearly 100% of my work is created d using found materials. My hunting skills have been honed to a fine art while pawing through second-hand clothing, fabrics, beads, yarns, rusted metal, and fanciful objects found at local thrift stores, yard sales and on many rambles on desert trails. This kind of reuse and upcycling gives me fits of pleasure and excitement.” Monroe creates works that are stunning pieces when viewed afar, and marvels of creativity in their details when viewed up close. Monroe’s work can incorporate humor and wit – a wall art piece entitled “Walking Your Elephants on a Windy Day” can only be a piece of wonderful humor.

Gregory Montreuil lived for more than thirty years in New York City and, during this time, worked mostly in black, white, and gray. Upon leaving New York to split his time between Arrey and Marseilles, he dived head long into color. The approach of the artist to his work is as follows: I have throughout my career worked in two very different modes simultaneously. One mode uses chance and indeterminacy. Through limiting choices and possibilities and the use of risk an intuitive response ensues. Results are unpredictable but can surprise and astonish in their solutions. The “other side of my brain” uses more micro decisions that also use intuition but with more predictable results. Things can be tried and changed and tried again. A gradual building follows as a consequence and the result is more certain. The two ways of working are surprisingly complementary and balancing. I approach the void of the blank page/canvas without a preconceived idea but full of feeling. I strike and the battle begins. To paraphrase William DeKooning, ‘one has to start somewhere’.”
Montreuil’s works can be found at The National Gallery Washington, D.C., Yale University, New Haven, CT, The Wadsworth Athenaeum, Hartford CT, The Witherspoon Museum, Greensboro, NC, The Rourke Museum, Moorhead MN, The Wurlitzer Foundation, Taos, NM and private collections. Montreuil has written extensively about art for Flash Art, The New Art Examiner, Contemporary Magazine, Art Papers and other art publications.

Graham Murtough is an artist working primarily with sculpture, installation, and printmaking. Incorporating a wide variety of materials and techniques, he creates objects, environments and images that explore reoccurring themes of hyper urban development, grand nature, modern living, and the sense of renewal that often emerges out of catastrophe.

He earned his BA at the College of Santa Fe and was an active member of the Santa Fe art community throughout the 1990’s. He went on to live in London and earned his MA at the City and Guilds of London Art School. He is currently reestablishing his art practice on the west coast, while maintaining his London studio.

Deborah Mushock – from commentary by the artist: “As a native Texan armed with a business degree, I initially pursued the corporate world, relocating first to California and then to Florida. Upon returning home to Texas, I re-evaluated my life’s plans and goals. While searching for my own personal dream, I expanded my artistic education. I discovered, once exposed to painting, I was passionate to develop myself as an artist with an exclusivity to oil painting. … My style is grounded in the disciplines of traditional painting methods and painterly Impressionism. The inspiration of my preferred subject matter comes from daily life. I look to create heartfelt paintings of the human experience while capturing the vitality and rich diversity of the scenery. I try to remain constantly open to new possibilities and innovative ways of working. I capitalize on opportunities to learn new techniques and to explore new materials, which helps me grow as an artist and keep my work fresh.” Mushock also exhibits a line of contemporary jewelry at RioBravoFineArt.

Leo Neufeld has long been a prolific artist. His art school training began at the Art Students League of New York City. He has also studied at other prestigious art academies. Neufeld has had a twenty-five-year career as a teacher of drawing, oil painting, and sculpture in art academies and museums throughout the United States. Presently he teaches at the Neufeld Academy in Albuquerque. Leo established his Neufeld Academy in 2013 and continues instruction in drawing and oil painting there. Neufeld has produced a large body of paintings with wide ranging subject matter in a variety of artistic styles. He is an accomplished master of both landscapes and figure painting. His passion for his art is expressed in the following statement: “I didn’t choose to be an artist. I feel compelled to do this work, like I was born to paint in the tradition of the Old Masters. The Old Masters are profound in their interpretations of life, and art provides a deeper, more meaningful way for me to connect with, observe, and interpret the world. In the act of creation, I feel connected to something greater than myself. This universal feeling transcends time and space.” Neufeld’s artwork is in many public and private collections including the Capitol Art Collection in the New Mexico State Capitol Building in Santa Fe.

Susan’s path to acquiring her painterly skills and unleashing her artistic creativity was non-standard. She learned to paint by studying with a Wisconsin artist, John Acosta. One day, every week for five years, she would take a lesson, along with four other people, from Acosta. Acosta was a realist painter who did murals. Most of Noreen’s painting career has been consumed by realism. Her realistic paintings are often of animals. The tromp l’oeil style of painting has always intrigued her, and she has painted in that style for some years. Much of her recent work has been “painted cardboard.” The artist states: “The mixed media (cardboard, paper, and acrylic paint) that I have recently been doing, allows me to build, explore, shape and texture, and paint. I believe there is a hint of trompe l’oeil in some of my pieces. Some are planned but most take shape as I work. It is a very fulfilling process.”

Ricky Padilla was born on April 29, 1980, in Socorro, New Mexico. He is Navajo from Alamo, New Mexico and has lived there his entire life. Other than high school art classes Ricky is a self-taught artist. He works in acrylics, pencil, pastels, charcoal, and clay. His colorfully vibrant paintings include landscapes, portraits, animals, and Spiritual Navajo and Apache subjects. He also makes traditional Native American pottery.

“I’ve been an artist since I could hold a pencil so to speak, really since I was three. I would like to grow more as an artist and be able to help the students at the Alamo Community School grow as well. When I was young there were so many artists on the Reservation- weavers, silversmiths, sand painters, bead artists and so much more. Today only a few are left. We have so many talented youngsters at Alamo. I want to show the younger generation you make a good living following your dreams doing art of any sort.”

Miguel Pino puts pencil to paper to capture the stories and emotions of New Mexico’s Hispanic elderly. Pino is largely self-taught aside from a few art classes in high school and one semester as an art major at the University of New Mexico. He considers himself a character artist, specializing in portraits. He mostly works from photographs as his artistic endeavors are usually late at night, as his typical subjects are not inclined to show up for a sitting to accommodate his late-night hours. He works from photos he has taken or from photos he finds at the Museum of New Mexico phot archives. Pino has a strong preference for pencil-on-paper, but he also does photographic art. Three of his works are on permanent display at the New Mexico State Capital Building as part of the Capitol Art Collection.

William Bertrum Sharp was primarily an abstract expressionist; he resided in Beulah, Colorado during his painting career. In 1956, Art News magazine recognized him as one of the top 100 young artists in the country. After this early recognition, Sharp seemed to drop out of sight in the art world. But, at some point prior to 1966, H. Joe Waldrum, the founder of RioBravoFineArt Gallery, discovered and became enamored with the work of Sharp. (Waldrum was living and working as a high school band director in Larkin, Kansas when he first discovered Sharp.) Waldrum arranged for a one-person show of Sharp’s work at the prestigious McNay Art Institute in San Antonio, Texas in 1966; the show provided a boost to Sharp’s career. But this revival of Sharp’s career was short-lived as health issues began to impact Sharp. Sharp never gained the recognition he probably deserved as an artist. Waldrum has left RioBravoFineArt with a wonderful collection of Sharp’s artworks.

Joel Smith received his Bachelor from Brigham Young University in 1955, and his Master’s Degree in Painting from the University of California in 1957. With a young family to support, he decided to become an art teacher. He taught at four state universities; he also taught at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia. One of his favorite teaching jobs was volunteering at Haney Correctional Facility in British Columbia. In 1971, Smith finally settled down in Macomb, Illinois with a teaching job at Western Illinois. In 1994 he retired from this position and devoted his time to painting and showing his work. Smith’s favorite mediums were oils and watercolors. He was primarily known as an abstract artist, but he also enjoyed painting landscapes and nature. His work is exhibited in museums and collections around the world. In 2006, Smith and his wife Lu Smith moved to Socorro, New Mexico to be near a daughter and grandchildren.

Rebecca Speakes background includes thirty years of Graphic Arts as a graphic designer. She creates quilts, runners, and accent pieces that are geometrically designed with grid patterns in unusual shapes and rich color combinations; the geometry is reminiscent of M. C. Escher’s designs. Her pieces include fabrics with foil stamping that give strong dimensionality and strong directionality. With the slightest changes in light and viewing perspective, her pieces can yield dramatic changes in perception of the underlying geometry. Her approach to quilting gives her the freedom to produce a design where a rich multitude of colors flow freely throughout. Many pieces are embellished with beads and buttons to add more layers of depth and texture. All pieces are hand quilted; over a forty-year period, Rebecca has produced over three hundred quilts. Rebecca’s background includes designing and crocheting clothing and designing a home decor line of table runners, mug mats, placemats, pillows, and bags. This background has led to highly creative and imaginative framework for creating her art. Her work appears in various galleries throughout the country.

Wendy Tremayne – Artist’s Statement: “Most of my career as an artist has been focused on conceptual art. In my twenties, I decided to create a project that would explore what may happen if I choose one medium (paint) and prevented myself from touching it for several decades. I supposed that by doing so I would be charging a creative battery that may, when released, contain the energy of the desire that had built up over the years. On my 50th birthday I picked up a brush and got started. With no formal training and years spent painting in my mind, I taught myself to paint by creating portraits, mostly of friends. This evolved into figurative narrative works that are similar to diaries that I kept throughout my life that were drawing based and contained no words; self-referential, read as stories, and at times they contain imaginary characters and objects. Each painting is a personal inquiry in which I ask myself questions that I cannot answer with my surface mind. As I paint I discover the answers.”

Nolan Winkler – Artist’s Statement: “My work is often based in an energetic brush with abstract patterns of circles or dots, but sometimes they have representational elements to share the space. It is important that the viewer know that these pieces reflect emotions, ideas, dreams…that we all share. They are quite personal in their fashion. And if the viewer is looking for more than pure decoration, I’m there with them. Though, having a ‘beautiful’ painting or drawing is also important to me. I use titles to lead the viewer in my direction, but I wouldn’t dare to answer any questions in the work. They are all about ‘being’ and not about ‘the way. I am a lover of the paint! Having worked with Nathan Oliveira was a highlight of my working career; he taught me not how to paint but made me think WHY I paint, and that intent and content is all. Heartfelt and true.”